Stalemate
by subhumanity
Summary: Matt's known for a long time now that he's got to kill Mello. It's just a matter of how and when he's going to do it. Language.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Woo, repost of something else that had major formatting errors. Here it is again, but... better.**

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The first words out of his mouth were: "Jeez, can't you take a hint?"

The line of men behind him erupted in a wave of laughter, their faces cruel, their eyes amused. My gun wavered and faltered briefly, tilted to one side, but ultimately remained pointed at the space directly between his eyeballs. My eyebrows lifted. Few men have the gall to jest so carelessly when their lives are ripe for the taking.

"Apparently not." More laughter from the goons. I didn't get the joke. Maybe it wasn't funny like ha, ha funny. Maybe I just couldn't appreciate their humor. In my humor, they laughed like a bunch of fucking Tickle-Me-Elmos.

Mello laughed, too. It was a sick sound. My lips twitched with the desire to smirk at how high and mighty one can act when clad provocatively in leather, legs spread wide, at gunpoint. I supposed it had something to do with his trusty sidekicks who had more weapons on them than I'd ever seen in one place before-most of which were pointed at me. Go figure.

"What brings you here?" he asked casually, as though he didn't know. There was a loud snap of his chocolate bar in the silence before my answer.

"You tell me."

His smirk widened and he addressed his men without looking at them. "Leave us for a minute. There's no _real _threat here- and I'd like a few minutes alone with the persistent puppy-dog." Once upon a Winchester childhood, he'd begun to call me a sidekick, but then stopped himself and said "my puppy-dog." _My._ He didn't use that possessive pronoun this time; I pretended not to notice. He pretended not to notice that I didn't notice. There's this old saying that goes, "those who ignore history are destined to repeat it," but I don't really think that applied.

The goons laughed again-the _swine_-but did as they were told and filed out through the door one by one. The last in line turned and spared a passing glance down the barrel of my gun before looking up into my eyes. It was good that I hadn't worn my goggles that day; all the better to stare judgmentally with. The door closed behind him with a metallic click. When my focus went back to Mello, his gun was drawn and pointed at my head. The smirk was gone from both of our faces. Stalemate.

"Enough with the bullshit. Why the fuck did you come here?" he demanded coldly, all traces of tomfoolery banished from his face.

I rolled my head back lazily on my neck and looked straight at him. "Why does anyone do anything?" His eye twitched.

"Personal gain," he answered tonelessly, though my brain detected a note of sarcasm that may or may not have been present, tucking his gun safely away in the front of his pants. The white laces were undone and I was mildly disgusted. The look on his face suggested that he thought I would or should do the same, but my arm didn't move. So he had remembered the conversation we had all those years ago. What of it? I'd come for a specific purpose, and that purpose would not be forgotten like a used condom under the bed just for a temporary feeling of nostalgia.

"What, are you going to shoot me?" Clearly, he was amused by this idea. Honestly, I kind of was too. So I slowly lowered my gun and stuffed it down the back of the waistband of my jeans, like a real man.

A real man whose purpose in risking his life just became another discarded rubber broken during the backseat quickie on a lunch break.

Instead of wasting time waiting for an invitation that would never come, I strolled casually over and situated myself on the ratty old armchair near the couch, propped my feet up on the coffee table, and lit a cigarette.

"Since when do you smoke?" he questioned, sounding faintly disturbed with his eyes too wide, like some sort of deranged sea creature, through a mouthful of chocolate.

"Probably around the same time you started dressing like a cheap whore."

Mello laughed dryly, but the look on his face was far from humored. I took an inhale of smoke. At least I hadn't lost my ability to seriously piss him off with less than fourteen words using nothing more than my wit, sharp enough to cut through the tense air of a potential awkward silence. It was a skill I treasured dearly.

We were silent for a time-not comfortably, not awkwardly, just quiet-before I allowed my attention to drift around the room. The base of operations for this mafia hideout, I guessed, and if my intuition served me as well as it usually did, it was far from impressive. I saw the computer that I had hacked into and it was still displaying the same loop of footage that I'd programmed into the surveillance system this morning. Another treasured skill. They'd never even seen me coming in that endless monotony of sparse foliage lilting in the wind, shadows quivering, cloudless California sunlight left mostly unobstructed save for by the occasional cloud.

Before I could look back, he was on me-but it was the least sexual thing you could imagine, so don't get any ideas. He was leaning over me in such a way that absolutely no parts of our bodies were touching aside from his fingers wrapped tight around my neck. Maybe I would have gasped in surprise or choked from the lack of oxygen if I wasn't so set on not giving him the satisfaction.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he began, breathing down the bridge of my nose. When I didn't answer, he pulled me forward and slammed me against the cushioned back of the chair. It lost its effect with the soft 'coosh' the pillows made. He'd never been one for considering the dramatic effect of the environment.

"_How _many_ times _do I have to _leave _before you get the _point_?"

"At least one more," I answered with ironic cheesiness, staring straight into his eyes and earning another non-threatening slam against the back of the chair. It had the same effect as a single shiny red Christmas ornament on a foreign death-machine, or pink bunny slippers on the child-massacring, drug-peddling gang-leader at the top of the FBI's most wanted list.

The first sign of his wavering resolve was the slight increase in distance between our faces, which was quickly followed by the loosening of his grip around my throat.

The grateful intake of breath in my lungs was completely involuntary.

Finally, he retreated back to his couch and picked up the half-eaten bar of chocolate that rested on the cushions. The sensual, almost thoughtless, way he licked the melting candy rather than biting it made my skin crawl.

Ornaments on death machines, fluffy slippers on murderers, and Mafia bosses with melting generic chocolate bars.

"It's been a while," I commented darkly when my breathing stabilized. "You've changed."

My pathetic attempt to ease the tension without the use of wit was completely ignored in favor of a much more familiar and tired topic. "I told you not to come here."

"And I did anyway." How many times had we had that conversation? I was attempting to count, but he oh so rudely interrupted my efforts with an unpleasant glare and a snarl.

"What do you _want_?" he grumbled. Or, at least, the crinkles in his forehead and displeased droop of his eyelids gave me the impression that he might have been grumbling, though his voice never really changed from its normal toxic calm.

"We're friends," I retorted automatically. I didn't _want_ anything. Friends just stay together. No ulterior motives on my part. Aside from the murder, but you know how that went. I did, however, feel spectacularly absurd speaking that half-baked thought aloud.

"The carpet in the next room over is mauve." That, I will admit, caught me off guard.

"…What?" I asked lamely, sounding exactly as confused as I was.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were stating shit that doesn't matter." He only ever apologized sarcastically because oh, no one else is worthy of the prima donna's kinder sentiments. I only ever hated him on those same sarcastic occasions, but maybe I myself was being sarcastic in saying that. He's the sort of person that it's hard to _not_ hate, what with there being so many separate and awful qualities to choose from, if you know what I mean.

If my gun had still been drawn, somehow, my arm might have been tired and my finger might have slipped and I might have blown his smug little brains out, accidentally-on-purpose. The reasons that I had come here were starting to seem more and more significant with every impossibly irritating utterance that spewed forth from that chapped mouth of his.

"This is stupid," I told him bluntly. He shrugged one shoulder, allowing that. I watched as the ashes from my cig fell into a tiny pile on the impossibly-stained brown carpet. Either he was lying about the other carpeting being mauve or this place had the world's worst designer.

"You shouldn't have come here."

"Woah, déjà vu."

Mello gave me a look that could've made a variety of seasonal flowers and small animals wither away into nothingness.

Maybe it wasn't ha, ha funny.

That look positively _screamed _'Matt, you're an idiot, and I want to shoot you,' and I hadn't seen it in years. As I still couldn't imagine that I would enjoy being shot, I uncomfortably rubbed at the back of my neck and decided that we'd both had enough of the nonsense-and the snide remarks contained therein. It quickly became awkward after that.

"Now that you know I've found you, I can go." I stood, crushed out my half-intact smoke on the arm of the chair, and stuffed my hands in my pockets. It left a dark mark that fit my dark amusement. I hoped he'd paid for that chair. "I live in the city." I stared uneasily at my boots for a too-long moment. Maybe I was waiting for some sort of a response. Probably not. One never came, anyway.

To get to the door, I had to walk by the old computer system. Since I was there, and since it was convenient, I disabled and fixed all of the deplorable things I'd done to their security system over the past few days. The cameras were back to perfect working condition in about thirty seconds, so I stood back up and continued my exit. I wasn't sure what kind of Mafia-grade hacker couldn't recognize a security footage loop, even one as long as fifteen minutes, once it had been playing for over an hour. Maybe they didn't pay attention to that sort of thing here. I had to remind myself that not everyone was trained to be as observant as Mello and I were.

"Matt." I almost flinched. Hearing his voice bite out my name that way, especially what with my previous thoughts, stirred up years upon years of memories I'd successfully buried. It felt as though a migraine was appearing and then fading with every painful pulsation in the side of my head, which was due in part to the vast refresh of information. For half of a second, I thought he might have something significant to say-

"Tell my men they can come back in now,"- but I was kind of glad he didn't.

I swung open the door, paused, and stared emptily down the hallway. "My number's still the same."

And with that, I left.


	2. Chapter 2

When Matt was gone, Mello sat his chocolate bar down on the couch cushion ceremoniously-angling it just so that, even if it melted, the faded suede cushions would not be compromised-and lowered his torso to rest near his thighs. He set his head between his knees and _breathed._ Assuming Matt had done as he was told (which of course he had; Matt _always _did as he was told), Mello calculated that he had approximately one point seven minutes before the subordinates returned. He decided that he would use that time to have a panic attack.

How had Matt found him so quickly? He wasn't supposed to- There was going to be- He couldn't- A coherent thought was a far off point on the horizon, and there was no silver lining to his cloudy mind. Everything was completely and utterly ruined, and all he could formulate with his genius mind was, "Angry."

Matt had found him because Mello hadn't told him not to look. He could, of course, tell the redhead to leave him alone and never come back, but that would lead to unpleasant consequences, such as well, Matt leaving him alone and never coming back.

His timeline was all screwed up now, though, and he would no longer allow his thoughts to stray. It was his own fault for underestimating the skills of the enemy…or whatever Matt was to him, but it was inconvenient nonetheless. Everything would have to be carefully reconsidered and recalculated.

Somehow, the chocolate bar had made its way back into his hand by the time the door swung open again. The pack was led by Rod and Jose, and some nameless guy that'd probably be dead by Tuesday held the last position. Mello decided to call him Caboose. Even when entering a room, the mafia's hierarchy was obvious. If it counted for anything, Mello would be pleased that he was the unofficial number one of this branch of "the Family." But, of course, it _didn't _count for anything.

The seat which Matt had formerly occupied now held Rod, and Mello refused to allow himself a preference between the two.

"The hell is this?" Rod grunted. He was eyeing a beat-up white, rectangular piece of cardstock that might have passed for a business card if anyone in _their _business even used them in those days.

With eyes narrowed, Mello demanded that he be allowed to see it and caught it when it was flicked to him.

"Looks like a business card," the technical leader of the mafia in L.A. stated needlessly, voicing the conclusion the real brains of the operation had already come up with. "Probably that ginger kid's phone number." Caboose snickered.

Mello quelled the spark of irritation that made itself increasingly obvious before it could grow in size. He had to remind himself that not everyone had a genius IQ and therefore could not be blamed for their own idiocy. "Yeah," he grunted appropriately in response, flipping the card over again for the fourth time.

It was, in fact, Matt's phone number-the same cell that he'd had since the later Wammy days. It was stupid of him to leave it there in the hideout, but at least he'd been smart enough not to leave any form of identification with it. A circular burn mark, perhaps left by a lit cigarette, in the top left corner would remind him who it belonged to in the case that he forgot-a scenario which was not at all likely.

What was more disconcerting, though, that Matt had thought it necessary to leave a number at all. Had he really thought that Mello hadn't remembered it, just because he hadn't called? How stupid. How irrational. How so very _Matt._

* * *

The phone call went as follows.

"Hello?"

"I need you to be at the headquarters tomorrow at five. Not five fifteen, not five thirty, but five. If you don't show up then you'll never see me again."

So, it would be a lie to say that he never called. It would also be a lie to say that he made a conscious decision to do so, and that he had any other options at the time. Truthfully, I wasn't too thrilled when he did, _t__hat_ he did, or that he insisted upon being so damn sassy about it. Maybe it was curiosity or maybe it was the persistent desire to see him fall from the high position of grace that he held himself to in his mind, but I complied. What _could_ bring the mighty god down from that high horse on his own personal pedestal to request my assistance in anything? (And, yes, I knew he needed my help with something. There is no way in hell he'd call me for anything else.)

Once upon a time, back at Wammy's, back before we were the closest enemies that anyone could imagine, I would have made him swear up and down that this would make me his 'Knight in Tinted Goggles' _and_ that he was unarguably the Damsel in Distress in this fucked-up relationship before I would ever agree to stride blindly out into the world to rescue his ass any day. Or maybe not. Things had changed so much since then that I could hardly even remember how it used to be.

The car ride was long, though not unbearably so; I'd chosen the hotel precisely for its reasonably convenient location. When I arrived at the hellish funeral pyre that once had been L.A.'s biggest and baddest mafia hideout, I definitely should not have been surprised to see Mello leaning on a tiny bit of the charred ruins of the building's foundation, looking the picture of anguish though his face remained stoic and uncaring-half blown to hell though it undoubtedly was. Apparently he maintained that level of demonic composure in any and all situations. It was creepy. But I _was_ surprised.

Even when he rose to his full height and stalked uncomfortably toward the car as soon as I slowed (after briefly considering running him over and saving us both quite a bit of trouble), my mouth was agape. The leather of his clothes looked like it had all but fused to his pink and raw flesh like a bunch of melted crayons, but he remained silent. So, so silent. A cold chill crept down my spine like an icy spider with no sense of direction.

He seemed to have trouble working the handle of the door, but as soon as I tired of giving him a blank stare, watching him struggle, and reached over to open it for him, he managed to open it himself. Unceremoniously he lowered himself down to the passenger seat and gave the windshield a series of increasingly unpleasant looks. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"What happened?" I asked tonelessly, but received no answer. So the silent treatment was my payment for saving his ass. Oh, yes, it was _totally_ worth it. _Totally. _Never seeing him again was starting to sound like a blessing...

To ease the oppressive quiet, I decided to turn on the radio. When my hand came close to the switch, a shaky, gloved, feminine hand appeared and swatted mine away. The hand disappeared as quickly as it had come and went back to rubbing the melted flesh of his neck and shoulder, as though he hadn't moved at all. He looked almost too pathetic to shoot dirty looks at. Keyword: almost. And then I realized that his hand was actually _in_ the disgusting wound, rather than near, above, or around it, getting covered with blood and puss and skin in the places it wasn't cloaked in dark fabric. Disgusting.

"Doesn't that hurt?" The words came slowly and almost accusingly; even though it was obvious I was asking out of more than common contrariness and certainly not masked concern, I wasn't sure he'd break his silence to answer.

He didn't. I growled. "Mello. You're fucking around with a serious burn full of shrapnel and smoke and dust and God knows what else, wearing a dirty leather glove. Are. You. In. Pain?" I made it into a statement rather than a question. He probably didn't notice, but I was sort of mocking the way he got when he was angry.

"No!" he snapped, too loud, and snarled at the windshield. He couldn't look at me. If I hadn't been driving, I would have made him.

"No?" I repeated in what _could have been_ construed as a dumb manner.

He gave me a look from the corner of his working eye and then turned further away. I noticed that he winced whenever he twisted his body a certain way. At least some nerve endings survived, then.

"We have to get you to the hospital, man."

Mello blinked.

"Hey."

No visible response.

"Mello. You've got second- and third-degree burns. I don't give a damn how good you or I may be, we can't deal with that. We can't remove some of that skin or the shit that you got in it. At hospitals, they've got morphine, disinfectants. Skin grafts." My tone faded, unintentionally, to a more low and persuasive one.

When still he didn't answer, I started getting irritated again. Of course, quelling and ignoring such things used to be my specialty, which I made quick use of now. Rather than yelling, I went for the navigation system. No way in hell I'd be able to find a hospital in a city this unfamiliar.

"Matt. Just shut the fuck up and drive back to the hotel so we can get all of this shit off of me. You'll fix this." All of this was spoken in undertones, quickly, in one breath. I could hear his teeth grinding. For the first time, I considered that maybe he wasn't talking because he didn't want to, but because it hurt to do so. Of _course _he wouldn't admit that. Twit.

My hand retreated to the steering wheel of its own free will and I closed my mouth. He was trusting me to not let him die. Ironic, given my ultimate intentions. Regardless I was at least 90% sure he was putting too much faith in my meager skills, but scrolled through my memory in search of relevant medical information that I may have picked up at Wammy's.

What I found was: lukewarm water, not cold or hot, get out shrapnel. Cut off anything that looked too damaged to fix. What I needed was: whether or not he should be allowed to sleep, medications, if and how to bandage all of that up, what the symptoms of infection might be, and what things I absolutely should not do. Never before had I experienced such an intense longing for Clarisse, my laptop. It was borderline lust.

"If you didn't hit your head at all, you should try to rest," I suggested more quietly, sounding entirely more self-assured, calm, and polite than I felt. Maybe it worked, as I noticed the slight relaxation in Mello's tight shoulders. Silently, I supposed that maybe he just needed someone to take control of the situation, but that thought was so absurd that it didn't even make for a decent joke.

He pressed his head against the glass and looked shockingly peaceful for someone who had just been on fire. Following his lead, I let my thoughts wander. I listened to the smooth sound of the tires against the asphalt and mused that, now that he was near me after all this time, nothing would ever be the same again.

We reached the hotel at six and Mello was out cold. I had to carry his crispy ass up seven flights of stairs like the ugliest bride I'd ever seen because I had just _insisted _upon having a decent view of the nasty, smoggy traffic infestation that was the city in those days and he just _had_ to get himself blown up before I could transfer to a smaller, more nondescript motel.

I reached the door and reached an unexpected problem simultaneously. Mello was in my arms. The keycard was in my pocket. The laws of physics dictated that I could not possibly retrieve the key from my pocket without dropping my cargo, and I could not get into the room without the key, for it was locked. I also could not put Mello down because he was unconscious and the consistency of toast. My face twisted itself into an expression caught between indecision and confusion. At that exact moment, he returned to consciousness. Seizing the possibly brief window of opportunity, I set him on his feet and opened the door.

Now there are always three different ways to handle any situation: the Polite way, the Rude way, and the Mello way. The Polite thing to do would be to let me through the door first and perhaps even hold it open for me because it was my temporary home and I had gone out of my way to save his life not even an hour before. The Rude thing would be to shove me out of the way and go into the hotel without any further recognition of my presence.

Mello-validating the name of the Mello code of conduct-shoved past me, held the door open until I was safely inside, shoved me out of the way a _second _time, went to my master bedroom, and locked the door. Then he opened the door a crack, tossed a couple day's worth of clothes out, and slammed the door again. A hollow 'click' raised questions about the hotel's decision to install a lock on that door.

I thought I heard something weird happening in the walls, but it turned out that it was just my teeth grinding. My fingernails dug little crescent-shaped crevices in my palms. Interesting.

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**A/N: New chapter is more recent and therefore writing style is quite a bit different. If I read some more Palahniuk, I'm sure that old style will come back. I was just anxious to post because of alerts and reviews... I'll get my library back before the next chapter is done so I can get that sarcastic, clever, witty muse back.**

**Also, it seems that I need (or should have) a beta because I'm far too lazy to proofread these days. It would just be for plot/manga inconsistencies. Help me out? Please?**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm back, I think. While this chapter may be nothing special, I suppose it's better than nothing. If I later decide that that is not the case, I'll delete it and fix it. For now, this is where it stands. Also, to the people who offered to beta for me before I disappeared, thank you and I'm sorry for almost definitely not getting back to you on that xD;; We shall see if I can get around to writing consistently enough that it would make any sense for me to even have a beta...**

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****The next few hours watched me, tauntingly slowly as they passed, stare motionlessly and expressionlessly at the old-fashioned television. There was an asshole in my room in desperate need of medical attention which I would be somewhat capable and only slightly less than willing to offer, were my patient not, of course, an asshole. As that was the premise of the predicament, it seemed that there wasn't much for me to do just yet. Of course, my self respect was far too high to even allow the thought of just letting him die pass through my head. No, I had to fix him so that I could break him later and savor it.I waited until the sun set, just another hour or so later, and went to retrieve my lock-picking kit from the bathroom drawer where it was stashed comfortably in it's right place between the toothpaste and the deodorant. When I opened the door, Mello was asleep on my bed, in one of my shirts, just as I'd anticipated. The fact that he hadn't so much as twitched at the squeak of the rusty hinges spoke wonders of his condition. He was unconscious, and that was good. Still, though, I reached into my underwear drawer and retrieved two of the many bottles I had stashed within for emergency situations. The syringes were in a leather pouch under the bed and after a moment of blind fumbling through dust bunnies, I was ready to begin this makeshift surgery.

Unfortunately, though, Mello once again proved to be a bit tougher than expected. His one good eye lolled painfully open to give me a putrid look.

"It's a sedative," I explained as I slowly drew some of the clear liquid through the long, thin needle. I had no idea what I was doing, really, but it didn't show. My brief stint with heroin had done nothing for me as far as medical knowledge of needles was concerned. Mello's look didn't waver for a second.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now. Or I would wait until you were in better condition so that I could do it later, with dignity. You've been unconscious for hours."

Mello's tired, blood-speckled eyelid slowly fell to rest. I took the liberty of injecting him with a small dose of the sedative, to be safe, followed by a small amount of morphine. I was no sadist, despite everything, and though I wasn't exactly sure how this cocktail of chemicals would affect my patient, I couldn't really bring myself to care much.

_Patient. Patient. _I had to think of him that way to stop myself from holding a pillow over the melted, sticky face of my former best friend. _Patient_, I reminded myself, and the pus and skin fragments would probably leave another ugly stain atop the Pollock painting that already decorated my formerly gray and blue striped sheets.

After fetching all of my necessary supplies-mostly from the kitchen cupboards where, it seemed, everything in my residence went to die-and allowing the medication a few minutes to take effect, I set myself to work. Scissors made quick work of the shirt Mello had helped himself to borrowing and ruining, but the charred leather was another story entirely. It needed to be soaked in lukewarm water, along with the rest of Mello's body, in order to undo all the work that Mello's circulatory system had begun to attempt, what with the drying out and the scabbing wounds shut, still full of dirt and shrapnel.

With minimal discomfort but maximum irritation, I was able to get Mello into my scummy bathtub and run some warm water over him. After another long minute of letting him sit, the leather came off easily, like the skin of a slightly improperly cooked fish and the water turned the murky, familiar brown of blood and soot and rot. Some indistinguishable time later, Mello's body was as repaired as one could expect it to be. The wounds were dressed with gauze, medical tape, and long strips of bandage tied over more Neosporin than any one person should logically have in their possession without reasonable cause. The wound on his face, however, was a completely different story. I had nearly forgotten all about it when I stood up to go find some rest on my saggy, lumpy couch, but a flicker of movement brought my attention right back.

I took a sip of the coffee I'd prepared in the midst of a cigarette break a while back. It was no longer warm and almost completely tasteless, but even the feeling of that cold, bitter liquid sliding down my esophagus was miles better than making eye contact with this broken, bandaged figure lying stiffly on my bed.

Somehow, Mello was awake. I had no way of knowing how long that had been the case and, if not for my scathing hatred of this man, I might have felt a pinprick of guilt. I personally had no experience with being awake during amateur surgery, but I just couldn't imagine it being entirely pleasant.

Mercifully, I reached for the morphine and the dirty needle lying beside it.

"No." The voice was dry as Death Valley and cracked more than once during the one simple utterance.

"I didn't peg you for a masochist," I replied as smoothly as I could manage around the disgusting taste the coffee left in my mouth.

"No sedative," Mello clarified, somehow managing to sound like an extremely off-put fish out of water.

"Fine." I poked Mello in the cheek with the syringe and injected the morphine straight into the area I was about to be working on. It wasn't the best idea I'd ever had, clearly, but it would take effect much more quickly that way and it was surely only a matter of minutes before the wound dried out completely again. The worst that could happen, I figured, was perhaps some loss of vision in the eye. Who cared, anyway? He had another.

I was not gentle with this wound. The wash cloth I used to clean out the burn was rough and slightly caked with whatever liquid it had last come in contact with. There was some hair in the way, but I simply couldn't be bothered to move it out of the way before pulling out shards of everything with tweezers and slathering half of Mello's face and neck with the Neosporin I'd spent nearly $150 acquiring a while back during a drunken stint with a part-time hooker who had managed to fall down the stairs and still make a profit off me not twenty minutes later. There were no fitting bandages left, so the wound was left to the open air.

Mello was still glaring defiantly at the ceiling, silent, when I dragged myself to bed in the excruciatingly early morning sunlight.

I suppose now would be as good a time as any to explain myself.

Now, there were many-nay, _innumerable_ people in the world that wanted to see Mihael Keehl dead and, if not buried, then strung up like a hog by his toenails and set afire with blowtorches whilst short men in politically incorrect Native American attire danced around the corpse and whooped like banshees. I suppose, as far as motivation goes, I ranked rather low on the list. His laundry list was miles long and written in blood and urine.

There were so many hits taken out on him that I could probably get paid more money for putting a bullet in his head and taking pictures of the splattered brain matter than the average person touches in an entire lifetime. Of course, being a man of simple desires and nimble fingers, I didn't need the money.

I had no desire to kill him out of some misguided idea of euthanasia; I knew that if he was in any sort of pain, he caused it himself and wanted it there, as he enjoyed the suffering of any living creature, not excluding himself. He wasn't in any situations that death would be the most logical way out of. I did not want to kill Mello because I cared about him.

It was not revenge, either. He'd done nothing to harm me, or anyone I'd ever cared about-which was an admittedly short list, but probably could afford to lose a name or two anyway. As much as we'd argued and yelled and slapped and fought over the years, he'd never hurt me in any way that I hadn't already hurt him first. The only person I was ever angry about him harming was the childhood friend I'd affectionately called "Mellsy" for a while, until I'd realized it didn't bother him, and I was far beyond over that by now.

To be honest with you, I haven't the vaguest inkling of an idea why I wanted to kill him. The thought occurred to me one day when I was sitting on the pavement outside of Wammy's in the middle of the night some few weeks after Mello left and I was never able to let go of it since. Anti-climactic, yes, but the barest of truths. I was going to kill him, and I didn't care enough about him anymore to even wonder why I was doing it. This was how far we had fallen, and I embraced it for lack of a better thing to do.

* * *

Mello was beginning to question his sanity.

What kind of idiot, he wondered, would blow up a building whilst still inside it? And even more so, how could that idiot even begin to justify trusting someone as daft as Matt to clean up afterwards? He was in pain, and replaying every excruciating moment that was his life over the past few years. His logic was slipping. Near, despite his deplorable holier-than-thou attitude, would not have ever let any of this happen. If nothing else, his unshakable sense of logic would have almost certainly led him to a different person to rely on than Matt. Matt, who'd slept more during their basic medical training than Mello did that entire year. Matt, who had the most unsanitary hotel room Mello had yet to come in contact with. Matt, who'd been his best friend once, a long time ago in a place quite far away. Matt, who insisted upon pushing himself to the forefront of Mello's mind at every available and inconvenient moment that ever passed.

At least, he thought, he'd managed to rid himself of the insufferable horrors that were Rod Ross, Caboose, and the rest of the gang.

He sighed and imagined he could see his distaste as a tangible thing, curling up and stretching like a domestic cat, peering down at him from the ceiling.

Matt came in to get clothes after a shower some time later, muttering under his breath about all of the inconveniences he was being put through, and Mello pretended to be asleep until he actually was. For all his confidence and cockiness, he wasn't ready to face the world just yet.


End file.
